Step 2. Adding Colour
Before you pick up the brush and start painting go to your layer palette and click on the "Solid" layer. Although this layer is now hidden on canvas, it's purpose is to keep the colour work within the boundry. With the "Solid" layer active...Select >> Load Selection... click OK
Now the selection is going to keep your paint on the creature and stop you from accidently painting the background. If you inadvertently lose the selection you can load the selection again.
Create a new layer to start colouring on. I named this layer "Flesh_Colour". The colour that you paint on this layer will be the basic skin colour that you image the creature to be. This of course can be any colour you wish to have for your own artwork.
My preferred brush is a soft airbrush (I use this for the majority of my work but again it depends on the image and style you're going for). Use a large airbrush with the flow lowered to around 15%. You've probably heard it before...Less pressure equals more control".
The next step is to create a new layer and add your next colour. ALWAYS create a new layer for a new colour. My layer is called "Glaze". See image below. The creature has more life already.
I used a very pale green for my secondary colour and you can see I built up the opacity of the colour in areas.
This secondary colour I created breaks up the main skin colour to give variety. You can go crazy at this stage and create a whole heap, but for this tutorial I will keep it at two.
Step 3. Adding Highlights
The next new layer is the basic highlight layer for the skin. I’ve kept it pretty dull as I didn’t want to make the skin really shiny or wet looking. Areas like the tongue and eye which are wet have more highlights.
Zoom in to areas that you want to make "pop out" gradually build up the highlight area.
I'm using white to create the highlights today. If I wanted to add more realism I would add a bit of colour to it. A lot of people will say white is a BIG no-no! The reason why you can get away with it however is because you are creating very low opacity highlights so some colour of the original layers comes through.
If you look at the more close up image above you can see that highlight lies on the right side of the bumps and lumps of the creature consistently.
If you feel your highlights are too sharp...use Blur >> Gaussian Blur. If you have finished your highlights you can try lowering the opacity of the highlight layer or duplicating the highlight layer to see what it would look like more intense. Experimentation is the key sometimes.
When you are happy with the highlights you are ready for the next stage. Step 4. Adding the Wow Factor >>
